Neighborhood Update

Upon our return from Sorrento, we drove to Valentino's for supper, then immediately returned home. Having had automatic lights off in our BAV, we couldn't get the car started for church the next day as the lights were left on. We hitchhiked with neighbors.

Sunday afternoon soccer ended, and The Flintster decided to check the battery again. I did not go outside, but just listened to the sounds of male voices as they became involved with the jumping process which they eventually managed to do. Whew!

Some of the conversation during that time: An older gentlemen who apparently built the complex and lives one door away claims ownership of the cats. 'My' Olivia is actually Lulu, and she did have her kittens. I've walked down to where they 'live', but I couldn't see her . I trust she will bring her babies to meet me when they are big enough.

Town of Sorrento

Being retired provided the perfect opportunity for me to go with Flint to a conference in Sorrento. What made it even more fun was that another spouse went, too. Unlike our spouses who flew, we took the 'night' train; however, our mistake was that we didn't upgrade to a 'sleeper' car. It has been years since I had taken a night train, and when we checked at the Catania station about the couchettes, the man said, "Only four people, all women, couchettes." We should have known that the Italian train system doesn't keep up with the gender of their customers! LC and I found ourselves sitting up all night with four men in a car that was as hot as a sauna! They were polite, and I'm sure the three across from us had insisted on washing our car windshield on occasion when we have been stopped in Catania traffic.

With our husbands 'conferencing' all day, we hit the ground running with M, a wife we met at breakfast. I'm not a shopper, but I did pretty good each day. LC is a 5-start shopper. Antonioe shuttled us back and forth to town. We managed the streets of Sorrento nicely in pouring rain, unseasonable cold, hail, and located some excellent places to eat. Franco's for pizza; we took our husbands to Sir Joe for Festa della Donna; and Chanticler. Plus Flint, a colleague, and I found a place one evening with the most delicious dessert ever in the land of lemons.

One day we caught another bus to Positano, probably the most charming town on the Amalfi coast. Rock slides caused the road to Amalfi to be closed. We waited for our return bus in gale force winds! The news reported that the Mediterranean had over 100 kph winds that day. Two scheduled buses did NOT come, but finally one did just before the rain intensified and we blew away!

The Navy Supply Corps ball on our final evening provided the opportunity to dress up and visit. I appreciate all the Navy traditions I have encountered, and one of the most touching was the table for one, toasting with the water glass to those at war, missing, etc.

The train ride home during the day wasn't quite the adventure of our night train, but we shared the compartment with some delightful young people...a young man studying to be an actor; a young lady who works in a chocolate factory, and a young Japanese girl on her way to visit Taormina for the second time.

What a wonderful week!

Life with Rubbermaid

A few Sundays ago, I complimented a lady at church on how nicely she was dressed for church. (I find base church-goers to dress extremely casual. I wear pants to church when the weather's not even cold.....) She replied that she just took something that wasn't in Rubbermaid!

And so the life without closets has become 'Life with Rubbermaid.' I could start a Bubba Gump litany of uses/places for Rubbermaid. We have drawers, ladders, photo boxes, step stools, regular boxes, dvd boxes, Christmas boxes, wrapping paper boxes, the heavy duty boxes....If the NEX gets in some products, they sell out in no time. Just like a run on a bank, people run for the Rubbermaid.

Jan Scissorhands

I'm sure that if Thoreau were alive today, he couldn't wait to come in from the great outdoors, sit down at his computer and blog. Since the rainy season appears to be over, I tackled 'the yard' yesterday. 'The Yard' is about as big as a postage stamp and greets our guests as it is in the front, but it's totally overgrown with vegetation and a single, small olive tree stuck right in the middle.

Identifiable plants include some good ones: the olive tree, rosemary, sweet pea, thistle. (Yes, thistle is Scotland's national flower. And didn't you pretend thistle flowers were powder puffs when you were growing up?) Bad: Nettles, nettles, nettles....reminding me of the time in the warmer Bavarian season when Flint led me through some as we walked through the beautiful countryside in shorts, and the movie, "The Magdalena Sisters." Ouch!

The NEX (Navy Exchange) had no snippers or clippers in their gardening section; therefore, I bought Henckel kitchen scissors that weren't even made in Germany. And I started snipping away at the yard. During my second trip to Europe years ago, I recall the workers using scissors to trim carefully around the grave markers in the American Cemetery of Normandy. My snipping is more slash and pile. I knew 'the cats' had been around as they love to sun on the lava rocks that form the base of the fence. One left shortly after I started snipping.

Today I uncovered a rock about the size of Plymouth's, a maze of various sized rocks, a faucet, cat tunnels and the stench of 'the cats.' Oh, my Law! I trimmed nettles away from rosemary, left the thistles, cut out masses of an unknown plant, left plants that must produce some variety of gourd or squash, mistakenly cut the sweet peas three times, and didn't worry a bit as plants grow quickly here. And from 'the yard', a beautiful view of Etna still with quite a bit of snow on her shoulders.

A note since yesterday: The photo is of a half-scissored garden and Olivia the Garden Cat. She naps under the olive tree, and her eyes are green like ripe olives. She stayed with me all day today, and I am a bit concerned that she may be pregnant and not able to get through the fence ....or she's on her last leg. The wind has blown fiercely today, and she just moves from one spot to the other.